Today’s guests:

Fridays this summer we’re taking a look at the federal workers nominated for the annual Service to America medal, a prestigious career-achievement award. In today’s Sammies segment, Congress might be hyper partisan, but its investigative arm works hard to deliver facts that are thorough and impartial. From TARP to the Dodd-Frank law, Orice Williams Brown makes sure Congress gets the whole story on financial regulations.

Medicare has a $44 billion problem: improper payments, many of them to fraudsters. Now, just like in the Tom Cruise movie “Minority Report,” the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is trying to predict the crime and stop it before it even happens.

President Barack Obama has nominated three judges to fill vacancies on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Legal scholars say it’s the most important court in the nation after the Supreme Court. Democrats say the judges are needed for the workload. Republicans say the White House is packing a court that’s ruled against it. Charles Tiefer, former deputy general counsel to the House and now a law professor at the University of Baltimore, explains why he thinks the judges are needed.

A Supreme Court ruling offers a lesson to any federal worker who puts insurance and benefits forms off for some other day. In Hillman v Maretta, the first and second wives of federal employee Warren Hillman each claimed they should get the money from their late husband’s insurance policy. The court sided with wife number one, even though that marriage ended decades ago. Why? Her name was on the beneficiary form. What does this mean for you?

Elise Golandirector of sustainability Office of the Chief Economist, USDA

Did your mother ever tell you: don’t waste food? If only she knew. Americans toss out 133 billion pounds or a third of the world’s food supply each year. Now the Agriculture Department and the EPA have launched the U.S. Food Waste Challenge. They are calling on everyone in the food supply chain to join the effort.

From Our Reporters

Agencies soon will be able to compare specific performance measures of the federal financial management shared service providers. The Office of Management and Budget says the information will be the difference maker between this and previous attempts to get agencies to move to shared services. Federal News Radio’s Executive Editor Jason Millerexplains why OMB believes this time is different for shared services.

Tom Temin is the host of The Federal Drive, which airs from 6-9 a.m. on 1500 AM in the Washington, DC region and online everywhere. Tom has 30 years experience in journalism, mostly in technology markets. Before coming to Federal News Radio, he was a long-serving editor-in-chief of Government Computer News and Washington Technology magazines.